The Weathermen Boys

Hi, folks. Bob Wiltfong here.

 

So how did The Weathermen Boys come to be?

 

The ball started rolling in August of 2004 when Matt Oberg and I met for the first time while performing different comedy shows at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland. Matt was a guest performer in my improv comedy team's (www.neutrinonation.com) show over there. After getting back to the States, I called up Matt to see if he'd be interested in doing a stage show with me. He was. That show became our first work together: the two-person "business seminar" called "POW: The Professional Opportunities Workshop." After a successful run of POW at The PIT (www.thepit-nyc.com) in New York, Matt and I set our sights on another project to work on together. One of our interests was writing a sitcom pilot together. Lo and behold, that's when the New York Television Festival came along. Matt and I used the festival (and its corresponding deadlines for entry) as our impetus to sit down and write a sitcom pilot together.

 

When we sat down to write we had a few factors shaping our vision: 1.) We wanted to create a show that was a vehicle for both of us as performers -- not just writers, 2.) We wanted to use some of our best (tried and true) jokes from POW, and 3.) We wanted to take advantage of our backgrounds in local TV news (I worked for 10 years as a local TV news reporter and anchor while Matt's brother, Ted, is a prominent TV reporter in Houston, Texas at KTRK-TV -- http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=bios&id=3251581). Keeping in mind that we wanted to write something that hadn't been done before on television, we settled on the idea of two brothers (similar to our POW show) co-forecasting the weather (a part of local TV news that we hadn't seen a lot of shows in the past delve into -- as opposed to news and sports) at a TV station in Omaha, NE (my hometown -- write what you know, right?).

 

We wrote several drafts of our script and held at least 3 readings with friends and family before settling on our shooting script. Because we were financing the production ourselves and were going to serve as directors and producers -- besides writers and performers -- we had our work cut out for us. The fact that our pilot even got done is a modern miracle. Whether you respond to the humor in our pilot or not, I'm proud of the fact that we did what many big TV studios CANNOT do with far more money and resources: make a somewhat decent, understandable sitcom pilot. 

 

We turned to our friends and family to fill out our production crew -- basically for free. Extremely talented friends (thankfully) like Kevin Scott (editor -- on Final Cut) and Michael DelGiudice (photographer). If you look at who's acting in this pilot, it's some of the best, young comedic talent around today: Jason Jones (now of The Daily Show) as Snap Cardigan, Kristen Schaal (star of this year's U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen) as Ann the stage manager, Ptolemy Slocum (tons of commercials and other things) as one of our amblyopia patients, Rebekka Johnson (of MTV's Boiling Points) in our Aloha High flashback. All of these folks were friends of our's doing us favors. God bless them! For we truly could not have done this thing without them.

 

Our shoot schedule was very tight, to say the least. Because of scheduling and other factors (i.e. money), we shot this entire pilot in pretty much 3-and-a-half days (for roughly $3000). To give you an indication of how tight our schedule was...we shot all our TV news studio stuff (the news desk, the weather center, the control room) in basically 4 hours. 4 HOURS, folks. That's not a lot of time. To put it in further perspective for you, in our proposal to News 12 Long Island (where we shot that stuff -- the last place I worked in TV news) we asked for 2 full days to shoot what we needed. But because we were using the facilities on a Saturday morning -- between newscasts for News 12 -- we were only given 4 hours to shoot what we needed.

 

The rest of the shoot was pretty much similarly crunched. We only had time to set up a shot, rehearse the scene one or two times, and then shoot it in 2-3 takes usually. Like I said, the fact that we even had an understandable story at the end of the edit was amazing to me.

 

Besides News 12 Long Island, we shot scenes in a ballroom at a cheap motel on Long Island (the roast and telethon), our manager's office in the city (all the KFLE office scenes, all the rooftop scenes, the bathroom scene), my house (all the home scenes), The PIT (some flashback scenes), and Eisenhower Park on Long Island (remote humping the tornado).

 

What did I learn from this experience?

 

I have a whole new appreciation of how hard it is to create a good, funny sitcom pilot that: A. Makes sense, B. Is actually funny, and C. Has characters and story-lines that you would want to come back and see again. It's not easy to do. It's just not as simple as "make things funny" and move on.

 

I learned that it's vital to do as many readings as you can before you shoot a script. The feedback we got in our readings made our finished product that much better.

 

I learned that it's vital to have good sound on a shoot. Of all the factors in our shoot -- camera, lights, actors, etc. -- sound was universally the one factor that made a scene either very easy to put together or very hard.

 

I learned that there's no substitute for doing. By creating this pilot, I know I will be that much better at it the next time I do it.

 

What happened with our pilot as a result of the festival?

 

We were approached by several industry folks at the festival (thankfully) after our screenings went (all things considered) relatively well. We came somewhat close to striking a deal with TV Land to produce The Weathermen Boys for air for them but, in the end, they decided against it.

 

We struck up a relationship with Michele Armour (former Executive Producer of Chappelle's Show) after she watched this pilot and liked it. I'm happy to report that Matt and I are currently working with Michele on The Weathermen Boys -- and other TV show ideas -- to pitch to networks in the future. So who knows...? You may be seeing The Weathermen Boys (or some variation of it) on a TV near you down the line...

 

What are you and Matt doing now?

 

Matt and I, I'm happy to report, are still working and writing together quite a bit. We're in the process of launching our very own website which you can view here: www.bobandmatt.com and we've just put up a new two-person sketch show here in New York called "Adult Contemporary" to good reviews. Our immediate goals right now are to write a screenplay together hopefully befor the year is through.

 

On the performance front...Matt booked a role as host of a pilot for VH1 shortly after last year's festival while I've been busy co-hosting a new show in the works for the Discovery Channel. We both worked on a show that aired this past winter for Spike TV called The Order of the Serpentine and we've stayed busy shooting commercials (Matt in spots for FedEx and Progressive Insurance; me in spots for Verizon and Home Depot). Finally, I'm hosting a new webcast called NewzViewz that airs every Wednesday and Thursday night at 9pm (eastern) at www.channelblast.com. You can also keep track of my other projects at www.bobwiltfong.com.

 

Thank you for your support and we hope you enjoy The Weathermen Boys!

Bob "Weathermen" Wiltfong

Executive Producers:   Matt Oberg & Bob Wiltfong

Directors:   Matt Oberg & Bob Wiltfong

Writers: Matt Oberg & Bob Wiltfong

Principal Cast:

 

Bob Wiltfong…………………Bob Weathermen

Matt Oberg……………………...Matt Weathermen

Fred Tumas…….....…………Meredith Weathermen

Ali Farahnakian…………………..Station Manager

 

Background:

Bob Wiltfong worked for ten years as an actual news reporter at several stations all over the country, taking up improv comedy while working full-time at a station on Long Island.  Frustrated by the priorities demonstrated by local news broadcasts, he decided to leave TV news for good after losing a close friend during 9/11 and devoted himself to his lifelong passion of comedy writing and performance.  Since then, he has appeared on Chapelle’s Show and has a recurring role as a correspondent on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.  Wiltfong met writing partner Matt Oberg at a Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland, where they developed a sketch-comedy stage show.

 

How did you get started in entertainment?

“I always knew that I had comedy and acting in me,” said Wiltfong.  “But growing up in Omaha, Nebraska, among my family and community, that can’t be your focus—it has to be a hobby.”